


Folie à Deux

by jjtaylor



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-25
Updated: 2010-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 16:44:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjtaylor/pseuds/jjtaylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A building falls on Ray. The good news is, Fraser catches the tomato thief, and Buck Frobisher learns how to astral project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Folie à Deux

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ataratah for beta.

Ray doesn't feel the building collapse, only hears it creaking and then wakes up in an uncomfortably stiff position, with a piece of rebar protruding from his thigh. He can't feel his leg at all, which he thinks a bad sign. But when he reaches out to touch the rebar, the thick blood sticky and dark around it, he feels a shudder of revulsion so strong he thinks he might pass out again.

There's no one around. No sound of frantic digging. Fraser had to be two blocks away by now, chasing the guy who stole tomatoes right from the outdoor supermarket display. Ray wonders how long it would be until Fraser looked over his shoulder and realized Ray wasn't behind him.

"Shit," Ray says, because it's dark and he can feel the weight of the building all around him, can feel how precariously balanced he was in this little nook, this tiny cave, this little spot where only four by fours were holding up the space around him.

If Fraser were here, he'd probably tell a story about the time he spent four days inside a space half the size of this to wait out a criminal, and never so much as pulled a muscle. If Fraser were here, he'd be able to check the angle of the rebar and tell Ray how many weeks Ray would be in PT. If Fraser were here, Ray wouldn't feel so crushingly alone, and dammit, Fraser would be here if he hadn't been so Fraser-like and decided that minutes before a bust was the perfect time to run off after some petty thief. But then Ray blinks and Fraser is there, red serge and perfect Stetson and his fingers on Ray's wrist, feeling for his pulse. He's not even sure how Fraser's hat fits in here.

"Jesus, Fraser, where have you been?" Ray says, because Fraser must have just been out of his line of sight or something, there's - but he wasn't, he wasn't here a moment ago and now he is here, and - "I mean, when did you get here?"

Fraser does not look at Ray until he's done checking his pulse, and he says, "Remarkably strong, considering," before he glances up at Ray and looks stricken for a moment and then is smiling, pleasant and seemingly worry-free. "How do you feel, Ray?" he asks, completely ignoring Ray's question.

"Not so good, Fraser, not so good."

"I'm sorry, Ray," Fraser says. "Help is on the way." Ray just nods and closes his eyes.

"So you were here when the building collapsed," Ray says. "You were right by my side?" He seems to distinctly remember Fraser running off down the street after some guy with a bag of tomatoes in his hot little hand, while Ray shouted for Fraser to just listen to him one goddamn time.

"If it is at all any consolation, the entire building did not collapse," Fraser says, "Only a fraction, only the part supported by the deliberate design flaw."

"That's the part I was in, though."

"Yes," Fraser says sadly. "It is the part you were in."

"You might as well tell him," another Mountie says, a shorter, older guy, wearing a hat and a uniform just like Fraser's. He's perched on the edge of a two by four in an outcropping of cement, a space too small for him to really be able to sit properly, but somehow he manages it.

"Now is not the time," Fraser says, and there's definite impatience in his voice.

"Tell me what?" Ray asks and Fraser turns and stares at him, open-mouthed with shock.

"You heard that?" Fraser asks, incredulous.

"Yeah, I heard it. I may have had a building fall on my head, but it didn't damage my hearing. The guy's right there."

Fraser turns his head slowly between Ray and the guy and Ray's hopes that this other Mountie was here to assist in the rescue are dashed because Fraser actually looks surprised - not that the guy's there, but that Ray has noticed him.

The guy says, "You're under 20 feet of rubble," and now Ray understands why Fraser wouldn't really want to tell him that.

Ray is still blinking at Fraser and the old guy when another Mountie flickers into being in front of him.

"-llo, hello!" the guy is shouting, looking all around like there was more to see than the tight crawlspace of a collapsed building.

"There's no need to shout, Buck," the old guy says, looking annoyed.

"Bob!" the guy named Buck responds, looking delighted "It's this damn echo," he says, still shouting.

"There's no echo, the layout of the rubble is all wrong," Bob says.

"Ah, Buck," Fraser says. "I'm sorry, I hadn't realized you were dead."

"Benton!" Buck shouts.

Ray was suddenly feeling crowded with three Mounties and an ominously creaking building. "Hey!" he shouts.

"I'm sorry, Ray, how rude of me. This is Buck Frobisher, my father's partner - "

"This is the Yank," Bob say to Buck.

"And this," Fraser says, with the slightest hesitation, "is my father."

"Huh," Ray said. "So you two are both dead?"

"You're not in much of a position to be asking that," Fraser's dad says.

"I'm not dead," Buck says with delight. "I'm learning astral projection!" At that, Buck flickers and disappears.

"Needs more practice," Bob says. "You can't learn that sort of thing overnight."

"You're telling me you learned astral projection?" Fraser says. Ray has never heard that tone from Fraser, but Bob makes a face like he hears that sort of tone from Fraser all the time.

"Son, shouldn't your focus be on your friend here?" His tone was kinder, as though the reprimand only made him nicer. "Let me worry about my old partner. You've got yours right here."

Fraser's thinly set mouth softened. "Ray, we should focus on keeping you well - "

"What about getting me outta here, Fraser, can we focus on getting me outta here?" Ray tries not to sound panicked, he wasn't panicked, he was just seeing Mounties all over this space where they couldn't really fit.

"Buck?" Bob calls out. "Imagine yourself as a cloud, passing along the sky."

"What is he talking about?" Ray says.

"I don't know, last I checked, my father wasn't an expert in astral projection." The last part was as an aside to Bob, who wasn't paying attention, but talking to the absent Buck, or possibly just the air, about ice picks.

"Last I checked," Ray says, but then is stopped by a brief coughing fit. "Last I checked, your father was dead."

"Yes," Fraser says plainly.

"So does that mean I'm dead?" Ray asks, though it takes him a few minutes to form the question.

"Oh, no, Ray, no, you're not dead." Fraser sounds as though Ray has just told Fraser he often wishes Canada will fall into the sea. "No," Fraser says again, as though repetition is key.

"But you're not really here," Ray says.

Fraser gives him a look that means he'd get told off for being ridiculous if it wasn't for the rebar. "Of course I'm here, Ray."

"And so's your dad and your dad's partner."

That seems to give Fraser pause. "Well, yes. Apparently."

Ray does not feel reassured.

"BOB!" Buck shouts as he reappears. "The bit about the ice pick, that was the key."

"Better than an ice hammer," Bob says, and he and Buck crack up over some incomprehensible shared joke.

Fraser shakes his head and looks at Ray. "I want to reassure you that, as unlikely as all of this may seem, you are, in fact, perfectly sane. This is just - "

"My brain turning to mush? All the blood leaving my body through this nice wound here?"

"Put some pressure on it," Bob says, to Fraser. "Buck, hand me a clean cloth?"

"What? Oh, sure," Buck says, and rummages around somewhere invisible and pulls a white towel out, and hands it to Bob, who hands it to Fraser, who presses it to Ray's wound.

"Jesus Christ, ow, fuck," Ray hisses.

"It's ok, Ray, it's ok," Fraser says. There's nothing else for him to believe, except that he's alone, and he'd much rather be here, with Fraser, and two old guy Mounties who are now telling stories about the various times they've been impaled.

  
They had been on the trail of an engineering criminal who had been been sabotaging new construction all around the city. Fraser theorized it had something to do with his design principles, specifically way the columns were buckling at a rate much faster than the weight-to-slenderness ratio.

"So how do we find this maniacal engineer?"

"I think you mean a mechanical engineer, Ray."

"No, I mean, maniacal, he's making buildings fall down, like a maniac," Ray had said.

They'd gotten a call in the middle of the afternoon, a construction worker had seen someone suspicious with a blow torch and a shoulder bag full of saws. Ray's parked the GTO a block away, he wasn't having any building fall on it, and they were going to approach on foot. Ray thought he saw a shadowy figure ducking under the plastic sheeting surrounding the newly drywalled porch of the new construction, and he was shouting to Fraser, who he thought was right by his side.

Fraser was actually running off down the street in the opposite direction after a guy who had snatched the tomatoes from the market they'd just passed.

"Fraser, come back here, I've got the guy in my sights!"

"Keep him there, I'll be right back," Fraser shouted. "I must reason with this man to return the fruit he has mistakenly walked off with."

Fraser said something else, Ray's sure of it, about tomatoes and justice, but Ray couldn't hear it, because he'd lost sight of the maniacal engineer and what he saw instead was breaking plaster and a cloud of dust and then there was no floor beneath him, and he was falling, and the building was falling with him.

  
"Fraser," Ray says, and Fraser scoots closer, his hand still pressing the cloth to Ray's wound. Bob and Buck are turned toward each other, discussing a guy named Gus Gustaphson, who Bob is saying never should have been put behind a desk.

"I bet he hardly even knows what it's for, probably tries to skin a caribou on it."

"Deboning fish," Buck says and Bob cracks up, slapping his leg in laughter, but missing and slapping Buck's. Ray sees something spark between the two of them, and Bob doesn't move his hand.

"Yes, Ray?" Fraser asks. His hat's off and he's completely dust free and Ray doesn't even remember now what he wanted to ask Fraser, he just wanted his attention, which wasn't actually new.

"You were right beside me, right? You caught the tomato thief and then you caught up with me and then the building collapsed on both of us, right?" Fraser doesn't say yes, but he doesn't say no. He is very, very focused on Ray's wound. " Then why aren't you injured?"

"Luck," Fraser says immediately.

"So you were standing right beside me when the building collapsed?"

Fraser looks above Ray's head for a moment and then says, "I believe I could fashion a plank into a makeshift lever and lift you to relieve the pressure on your back."

"That would be a mistake, son," Bob says, and Fraser sighs.

"Why is that, Dad? Can you see something about the building's structural integrity that I can't?"

"It will aggravate his wound. Put too much pressure on the leg."

"It's all about the placement of the hips," Buck says.

"Thought you'd know that by now, son," Bob says, though his straight face breaks after a minute and he and Buck are practically wheezing with laughter.

"Dad, now is hardly the time for such - "

"I'm sorry, son," Bob says, cutting Fraser off, but still laughing. "Crisis induced hysteria," he says and starts laughing again, and Buck starts, too, holding his chest.

"Neither of you are in a crisis," Fraser protests, but neither Bob nor Buck acknowledges him.

"I'm sorry, Ray," Fraser says and Ray's not even sure what he's apologizing for.

"How are they here?" Ray asks, because that's what he'd been meaning to ask before, and everything's going fuzzy and he's afraid if he doesn't ask soon, he won't be able to at all.

"I believe that the way astral projection works is that, through entering a state of deep concentration and - "

"Fraser," Ray says. "I'm hallucinating this all this, aren't I?"

"No, you are trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building."

"That doesn't mean I'm not making all of this up. In fact, it makes it that much more likely that this is all a figment of my imagination."

"Would it make you feel better if I told you it was all in your imagination?"

Ray really wants to say yes, but Fraser seems to already have known what he was going to say before he says, "No, it wouldn't. It would make me feel worse."

"Well then this isn't a hallucination. Or, if it is, it's a shared delusion. Folie à deux. Do you know, once when I was a child - "

"Frase - " Ray reaches out for anything he could reach of Fraser's to emphasize his point and his hand lands somewhere on Fraser's chest.

"Yes, sorry. Another time," Fraser says, and leans forward into Ray's touch, just a little bit.

  
Ray must black out or drift off or something, because Fraser's roughly shaking him awake and Ray remembers with growing panic that he's not asleep on his couch like he thought he was a second ago. He's still buried under the rubble of a building, and there's a maniacal engineer on the loose, and he's hallucinating.

"Ray, Ray, Ray - " Fraser's saying, his hand tight on Ray's shoulder.

"Let the Yank sleep," Bob Fraser says grumpily.

"If I do that, Dad, he might die."

"And what's so bad about being dead?"

Fraser makes a disdainful, sarcastic sound, and Ray kind of laughs his way to consciousness, because he's never heard Fraser talk like that, even when Ray had really pissed him off. He's never seen Fraser's displeasure so open and evident. It takes Ray longer to actually open his eyes, and when he does, Fraser is peering at him, looking deeply concerned. "Are you feeling hysterical, Ray?"

"No," Ray says, and he almost manages a smile though it cracks painfully at the corners of his mouth "No, I'm just enjoying hearing your father get under your skin."

Bob Fraser's the one who laughs now.

"He does have a unique skill at that," Fraser says, leaning close to Ray, and for a moment he thinks Fraser might be using him for a pillow, but Fraser's pressing his ear to Ray's chest to check on something, his heart or his breathing. Ray's not really sure either is working very well right now. But Fraser's head is very close to Ray's and when Fraser turns to regard him, their mouths are close, too close.

Bob Fraser makes a polite coughing sound and looks away. Fraser checks Ray's pulse again, his fingers on Ray's throat, the memory of how close Fraser just was still beating in Ray's chest, he's sure his pulse won't be normal, even for an injured man. Fraser sits up, his hand sliding, almost reluctantly, from Ray's neck. It's quiet, and Ray can almost hear noise on the street above him, noise that could be sirens.

"You know, son, Buck and I - "

"Dad," Fraser says.

"Understood." Bob says.

"Where is Buck?" Ray asks, because he actually finds he's missing Buck's weird, unlikely presence.

"Had to go baste the goose," Bob says. "And to make sure someone knew you were stuck."

"He's in Canada, though, isn't he?" Ray says. "How is he - "

"It's taking far too long for them to find you," Fraser says. "They're digging, but proceeding too fast might cause the wreckage to fall in on itself, but if Buck could provide them with more accurate coordinates -"

"Us - " Ray coughs a little. "Find us."

Fraser doesn't respond.

After a moment, Ray's chest starts to feel tight, and his eyes are heavy, and then Fraser's hand is against his face.

"Ray, Ray, Ray," he's saying.

Ray gasps, trying hard to breath enough to speak. "You're not real, are you, Fraser?" he says, as he feels the despair closing in around him. He's going to die here alone, and the last thing he's going to see is his own hallucination of Fraser.

"Of course I'm real, Ray," Fraser is saying, "I'm right here."

Ray tries to hang on to that, to believe it, as everything goes dark. Except suddenly there's a desperately bright light shining into his eyes, someone's fingers pulling back his lids, someone's fingers at his throat, looking for a pulse.

"He's alive," someone says, someone familiar.

"Fraser," Ray says, though he's not sure if the sound actually makes it out.

"We've got you, Ray, you're going to be ok."

"You're here," Ray says.

Fraser's mouth presses briefly to his, a more impulsive act than Ray thought possible of Fraser where there wasn't justice involved. Ray realizes he's not actually sure which Fraser it was, the real one or the one who had shown up impossibly while Ray was trapped. But now Fraser has kissed him, one of them, the real or the imaginary one, and either way, Ray doesn't know why something so terrifying makes him feel so safe.

  
Ray spends two days in the hospital, and is ordered off-duty for two weeks, which basically means he's confined to his apartment. The doctor said limited mobility, so he can't hobble much farther than to the bathroom, and that means lots of people are in and out of his apartment, bringing him food and asking if he's in pain and making him feel like someone would really have cared if he'd died.

Everyone visited him, except for Fraser, who, after the first visit in the hospital, had disappeared for three days. Ray found out later, from Huey and Dewey, that no one at all had seen Fraser until he turned up at the station with the maniacal engineer and requested that Lt. Welsh take the man into custody. When Ray asked what happened, Huey said that Welsh had taken Fraser into his office with the door closed for fifteen minutes and no one had heard yelling, not even Frannie, who'd practically had her ear pressed to the door.

That night, after Huey tells him the news, Ray talks to Fraser over the phone from the consulate. He sounds tired and promises to come stop by and see Ray as soon as he's done with his paperwork.

Buck Frobisher flicks into sight in the middle of Ray's livingroom, his hands out like he's about to lose his balance.

"Ray!" Buck says, delighted.

"Gotta go, Fraser," Ray says, hanging up the phone quickly.

"Am I hallucinating again?" Ray asks.

"Stop worrying your head over the details," Buck says, and then spots Ray's abandoned dinner on the table. "Oh, ravioli, mind if I finish it off?"

"Go ahead," Ray says, telling himself to do as Buck says and not worry about the details, not worry about what it means that there's a Mountie in his livingroom, eating his ravioli.

"Delicious," Buck says. "How's the leg?" He perches himself on Ray's coffee table, and then, reconsidering whether or not it can take his weight, sits on the couch instead.

"Healing ok," Ray says, and then after a moment of not knowing what else to say, he adds, "Thanks, for, you know, sending them the coordinates."

"It was no trouble," Buck says. "Well, it was some trouble, I had a hell of a time convincing the detective who answered the phone that I knew what I was talking about, but finally I got through to Inspector Thatcher, who reached Constable Fraser, who was able to tell the rescue team where to find you."

"So you knew Fraser wasn't there with me."

"Of course he was," Buck says.

"But you just said - "

"Come on, son, don't you understand how someone can be two places at once?"

Ray did not, in fact, understand that, but before he could argue, Buck was saying he had to go answer the phone and he disappeared.

  
It's only when they're having pizza and watching a documentary about migrating octopus that Fraser insists is a proven way to lower Ray's blood pressure, and thus speed his healing, that Ray is finally able to get out the thing he'd been meaning to ask.

"Tell me, Fraser, do you often talk to your father?" Ray's sitting on the couch, his leg propped up under several pillows and making him feel like he's a punchline in a joke about downhill skiing.

Fraser looks like he is about to say something and then changes his mind before he can open his mouth. He says, cautiously, "My father's dead."

"I know, I know that. Do you talk to him?" Ray feels as though they're both on either side of a seesaw, making each other go up and down without ever trying to meet in the middle.

"People often speak aloud to people they've lost as a coping - "

"I'm not talking about things left unsaid. I'm talking about chatting, like, hello, Dad, how are you today?"

Fraser seems at a loss. After a long time, he says, "Yes." He is looking determinedly at the seams on one of the pillows under Ray's leg.

"Ok, and do you want to tell me more about that?" Ray says. It's a long shot, but its better than starting anywhere else.

Fraser stands abruptly and tells Ray that he's forgotten to fill out some important paperwork and its absence will so infuriate the Inspector Thatcher that Fraser has to go and complete it at 8:30 at night. Ray knows when someone's making an excuse to leave, and Fraser's as good at it as he is at everything, and so Ray just watches him go and promises he'll finish the octopus migration show and switches it off as soon as the door's closed.

Buck appears as though turning off the TV activated the 3-D Royal Canadian Mounted Police channel.

"Ray!" he says with what Ray is learning is Buck's usual enthusiasm.

"Getting pretty good there at the astral projection thing," Ray says. Buck is looking around his living room as though looking for where he set down his glass.

"Not really," he says. "I was aiming for Manitoba. Was Benton just here?"

Ray wants to ask what was in Manitoba, or how exactly you miss when you're astral projecting, or, you know, why Buck was trying to learn at all. "Yeah, he was. Can you see some sort of aura or whatever?"

"No, it's just that he's left his jacket. Either that or you borrowed it and you know what it means when you borrow a man's jacket."

"I do?" Ray says and Buck just laughs.

"Now where in the blazes did I set down my tea?"

"Probably in Canada," Ray says. "I can make you another cup."

"Good man," Buck says, and tries three times before he manages to sit on the couch and stay there.

  
Buck's visits become about as regular as everyone else who's checking on him, and twice as entertaining. Buck tells Ray stories he can barely follow about life up north, the kind of thing that reminds Ray of Fraser stories, except Buck's are a little more likely to bend toward the explicit and just as likely to wander off into two other stories, none of which Ray ever really hears the resolution to. Buck's best stories are the ones about Bob Fraser, although possibly those are just the ones Ray finds most interesting because they are insights - slightly bizarre and possibly misleading - insights into Fraser's life, the kind of things Fraser would never tell Ray outright.

Once in a while, Bob himself would show up. Mostly, Ray could tell, to see Buck and not to see Ray, though Ray didn't mind, because Bob managed to keep Buck's storytelling on track, and because, every once and a while, Bob would say something nice about Ray's apartment, or compare his listening skills to Fraser's, which, according to Bob, were quite lacking. "You've got a good set of ears on you, son," he says to Ray. "Taking it all in. That's the way to learn."

Learn what, other than what to do if he was lost in a vast wide open wilderness with a dead guy and someone who was astral projecting from off site, Ray didn't know.

  
Fraser was acting weird, though, and not just because Ray didn't see him every day. Every time Fraser came over, he was so wracked with guilt and weirdly distant it was like he was wearing all his winter gear indoors, like it was a barrier. Fraser would obsess and fret and worry about Ray's injury, Ray's well-being, as though he could have somehow saved Ray if he'd been at his side, as though Ray were still down there, under all the rubble, as though he was surprised Ray didn't blame him for it all, and was just waiting for Ray to discover how angry he was at Fraser and was ready, whenever that moment came, to accept full blame.

One time after Fraser asks a few too many times in a row if Ray is doing his physical therapy prescribed exercises, Ray decides to really embrace the Mountie spirit of talking without thinking.

"Can I tell you something?" Ray asks. He can feel Fraser tense, like he is expecting the big fight. Ray was almost ready to give it to him if it would mean Fraser would stop acting so strange.

"Of course," Fraser says, though he takes three deep sips of his water before sitting back against the couch and is looking almost everywhere except at Ray.

"Something happened, when I was under the building and all that," Ray says, and he's just got to say it, it can't sound any less crazy the longer he waits.

"Go on," Fraser says, and damn doesn't he look like a kicked puppy.

"I saw you, like you were with me," Ray says, and because he might as well get it out all at once. "And I saw your father."

"My father," Fraser says, very slowly.

"And your father's partner. Buck."

"You saw my father and Buck Frobisher?"

"And you," Ray says, and before Fraser can interrupt him again. "It was like, all of you appeared to me, because I needed help. Because I was down there alone," he says, and Fraser flinches, "Except I wasn't alone, because if I had been, I wouldn't have survived. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

Fraser's quiet for a moment before he says, "It sounds, Ray, as though you are describing what some people have termed a crisis apparition."

"Sure," Ray says, "Yeah, it was totally a crisis." He's glad that Fraser isn't totally discounting it, because if it had been a hallucination, then it would mean he's still hallucinating Buck Frobisher, who seems real enough when he's appearing every night to tell Ray stories.

"I'm not saying it wasn't," Fraser says, and Ray can tell there's some argument coming, "But that's not exactly how crisis apparitions work, purportedly. You see, it is usually the spirit of the person appearing who is in a crisis, reaching out to someone they...." Fraser takes a breath. "If you were the one in the crisis, and you had spirits appearing to you, then it sounds more like -

"Hallucinating. You said, in the building, that I wasn't hallucinating, or that we were sharing the hallucination. Folly something."

"Folie à deux," Fraser says immediately.

"Yeah, that," Ray says.

"But I wasn't there," Fraser says, like he doesn't quite believe it. "I should have been there, and I'm so sorry - "

"Maybe you're the one hallucinating the fact that you don't remember," Ray interrupts. "Trauma caused by being stuck in a collapsed building."

Fraser looks for a moment like he's seriously considering it. "You should get some sleep. I'll go clean up in the kitchen and let you rest," Fraser says, getting up abruptly.

Buck appears just as Ray hears the sound of Fraser turning on the faucet. "You two aren't very good at talking, are you?"

"We're fine, we're fine at talking," Ray protests.

"Did you say something?" Fraser calls over the sound of clattering dishes.

"No," Ray shouts back to Fraser. "Wasn't me. Keep it down," Ray adds to Buck.

"I'm just trying to help."

"Help what?"

"Ray, are you sure you're not saying something?" Fraser comes around the corner, throwing the dish towel over his shoulder. Ray looks quickly back over at Buck, but he's already gone.

Fraser looks where Ray is looking, then at Ray's face.

"I'm fine," Ray says. "You didn't see - "

"See what?"

Ray passes it off as injury-induced weariness, and Fraser seems willing to accept it.

  
Finally, though, Fraser seems to break his resolve to pretend nothing is wrong. He comes purposefully into Ray's apartment and catches Ray hobbling around without his crutches, something that usually results in a lecture from Fraser about proper healing. The fact that this does not happen, that Fraser does not even remark on the way Ray's going to negatively affect the formation of muscle fibers, is Ray's first clue that something is about to come to a head. The second clue is the way Fraser is standing at attention, his hand straying to tug at his eyebrow. He looks like he wishes he had his hat so he'd have something else to do with his hands.

"Hey," Ray says cautiously. "Something happen?"

"I know you're angry with me," Fraser says. That's the third clue, though perhaps at this point they are beyond clues and right at the heart of the mystery. It's confusing, though, because Fraser sounds so certain, and the thing is, Ray's not angry with Fraser.

But Fraser sounds so sure, Ray says, "Yeah?" like he hopes Fraser's going to tell him why he's supposed to be angry.

Ray hobbles his way over to the couch, and sits down with a thump. Fraser follows, sits down and then stands back up again, like he thinks he doesn't deserve to sit down. "Have a seat," Ray says, and Fraser abruptly sits like he's afraid he's going to make Ray angrier by standing.

"I know you're angry with me," Fraser says again, a clear sign that there's no point in arguing, because Fraser believes something is true, it's as good as true.

"Ok, I'm angry with you. I'm very angry," Ray says agreeably. "Why am I angry?"

Fraser takes the question the way Ray hopes he will, like it's a test and he has to answer correctly. "Well, you're angry with me because I left you to pursue a suspect. I was - " Fraser stops, swallows back whatever he was going to say and says, "I was distracted by a petty thief and a wrong I was trying to right and I abandoned you in our pursuit of a more dangerous suspect. I neglected my partnerly duty. While I could not have let the tomato theft go un-addressed, I could have waited until a better time, a time when I would not leave you vulnerable to the attacks of a maniacal engineer."

Fraser pauses and looks at Ray, waiting, presumably, to see if he's correct, or if he's left something out.

"That's right," Ray says, trying hard to sound convincing. "That's exactly why I'm mad. I'm furious. I could punch you. In fact, I'm going to punch you right now."

Fraser nods solemnly. "That's fair."

Ray leans forward, his arm raised, like he really is gonna punch Fraser right there on the couch, even if the angle's bad and it's totally ridiculous because he's not even a little irritated. Ray moves his arm and Fraser doesn't even flinch, looking all sad-eyed and like he deserves whatever Ray gives him, and that makes him reach his would-be-punching hand around the back of Fraser's head, pull him close and kiss him, quick and hard on the mouth. When Ray pulls back, Fraser's got his bottom lip between his teeth and his eyes are wide.

"Do you get that I'm not mad at you?" Ray all but shouts.

"No," Fraser says. He stands, and his halfway to the door before he turns and says, "I'm sorry, Ray, I - you'll have to excuse me."

The door slams shut and Ray knows he's made things even worse. He's also just realizing that he kissed Fraser to win an argument.

"Hmmhmmhmm," Buck fake-coughs behind him.

"How long you been there?" Ray asks, turning around.

"Long enough," Buck says.

"Do you have any helpful observations or are you just here for lunch?"

"Do you think that was the right way to deal with your partner's guilt?"

"You like roast beef?" Ray says, because he didn't want to answer.

"You got mustard?" Buck asks, and then, once Ray's getting up and heading for the kitchen, "You didn't ask him the right questions."

"What was I supposed to ask him, where he learned to be so stubborn?"

"Ha!" Buck says. "We both know that answer. You should ask him what he saw. When you saw him, in the wreckage."

"I thought you said he was there, with me."

"Yes, but he was also somewhere else. Who's to say he was the only one?"

Ray takes out two pieces of bread and spreads them with mustard and slices of roast beef, and then decides to make himself a sandwich, too. "Tell me a story," he asks Buck, because his head's starting to hurt thinking about how he could possibly ask Fraser those questions.

"Did I ever tell you about the time with Bob on the rope bridge?"

  
Ray gets up for no good reason in the middle of the night, half-asleep, and he's filling a glass with water from the faucet when he hears a noise in the living room, somewhere in the vicinity of his couch. It sounds like the noise Diefenbaker makes when he's eating a pizza crust, a deliberate noise of deep enjoyment. Ray walks a little closer, gets right near the back of his couch, and then Ray knows exactly what that sound is. It's the sound of kissing, and Diefenbaker better not be kissing anything. And then the noise abruptly stops when Buck Frobisher props himself up on one arm and looks over the back of the couch, right at Ray.

"Ray!" Buck says, waving the arm that isn't supporting him.

"How ya' doin'," Ray says, because he's not sure what else to say.

"Oh, good, good," Buck says, and then he doesn't say anything else. "So."

With a huff, Bob Fraser sits up and pushes Buck away. Two Mounties are looking at Ray over the back of his couch. Two Mounties who had just been making out on his couch.

"Good evening, son," Bob says with strange formality. Bob's mouth is very red.

"I, uh, didn't mean to interrupt," Ray says, even though he knows he should be saying, "what the hell are you doing in my livingroom?"

"No, no, not at all, Bob and I here were just - enjoying - " Buck stumbles to the end of a sentence that was never destined to end well.

"You should try it sometime, you know," Bob says to Ray.

"I remember the first time we tried it," Buck says to Bob, and Bob's eyes kind of flash, Ray can see it even in the dark. "We were waiting out the..."

"That was not the first time," Bob interrupts.

Buck really looks at Bob. "Ooh, that's true isn't it, the first time was - "

"Hey!" Ray says, and they both startle.

"You should, you know." Bob says to Ray. "Try it."

Buck is looking like he's just about to lean in and try it again with Bob when there is a knock on Ray's door.

Bob says, "Go find out something new about your partner."

At the word partner, Ray opens the door and finds Fraser standing on the other side, looking, at the very least, slightly sleep-mussed, like 3 in the morning was too early even for his impeccable dress and his bright eyes. Fraser was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans and was rubbing at his chin like he couldn't quite remember how to get his jaw to work.

"Hello Ray," Fraser says in a whisper. "I am very sorry to wake you - "

"Come in, Frase - " Ray says sleepily and steps back to let Fraser in. "I was awake anyway. Wait, wait - don't - " Ray shouts, as Fraser steps into the livingroom. Ray has a horrible moment of wondering how he would explain - how Fraser would feel if he found - but Bob and Buck are gone.

"What is it?" Fraser says, concerned.

"Nothing," Ray says.

"May I?" Fraser says, about to sit on the couch but hesitant now, because of Ray's unexpected shouting.

"Just sit down, Fraser, don't ask my permission, it's too early in the morning for me to have to give permission."

"Ok," Fraser says. He looks up expectantly and Ray realizes he also should sit down and not stand awkwardly behind his couch like he's doing now. "I expect you'd like an explanation for why I am paying you a visit at this unconventional hour for - "

"I don't need an explanation, you can visit me whenever you want."

"Thank you kindly," Fraser says, and looks quite a bit more at ease than Ray's seen him since before the whole thing with the engineer, but then he almost immediately starts to get unsettled, fidgety, again. "I did come here, though, for a very specific reason," Fraser says, "And that's to ask you if - well, there's really no good way to ask this without possibly seeming crazy, but since you already seem to accept my perceived oddities for - "

"Fraser," Ray says, and Fraser stops.

"Of course Ray, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to ask, that is - have you seen my father recently?"

Ray can't seem to find the words, even though he should have a ready answer, considering what was just happening on this very couch a few moments before. Fraser takes his silence for confusion and so he begins to explain. "You see, I haven't seen my father in a few days, and, well, I should start earlier, shouldn't I? Since his death, my father has seen fit to appear to me, in a fashion very similar to that of a ghost, I guess you could say, and impart his wisdom and his often irritating - "

"Excuse me," Bob says, suddenly, appearing on the other side of the room, like he's just come out of the kitchen. "My wisdom can hardly been called irritating - "

"Well, it can be, at times, Dad," Fraser says, then looks, terrified, his eyes wide, at Ray.

"Heya," Ray says and waves at Bob.

"It's a nice couch, Buck was right," Bob says. "Might be better if you moved it a bit closer to the windows."

"Dad?" Fraser says, and then he decides to change tactics, and he looks at Ray. "You can - "

"See him, yeah. Is Buck in my fridge?" Ray says to Bob, because he thinks he hears the door opening. "Tell him not to eat the cheese, I'm saving that."

"Buck is - Buck Frobisher is in your refrigerator?" Fraser looks pale.

"Not literally, son," Bob says. "But that man certainly can eat. I once witnessed him devour an entire 3-winged turkey in one sitting."

Buck chooses that moment to appear at Bob's shoulder, pulling off slices of Ray's cheese.

"I said I was saving that!" Ray protests.

"For what, mold cultures? Hello, Benton," Buck says and folds a slice into his mouth.

Ray doesn't think he's ever seen Fraser look quite so flummoxed.

"How is this possible?" Fraser asks, looking, not at Ray, but at Bob.

"Don't look at me, son, I'm dead, I don't have all the answers."

Fraser finally looks at Ray, though its more like he looks through Ray. "And this first began when you were in the collapsed building - "

"When we were in the building," Ray corrects.

"We, meaning..." Fraser stops, closes his mouth, and swallows.

"You, me, your Dad, and Buck."

"Buck," Fraser says.

"Have some cheese, I always say dairy helps me think." Buck offers Fraser a slice, which he refuses.

"So you can actually see my father?" Fraser asks Ray.

"Yeah," Ray says.

"And that doesn't trouble you?"

"Of course it troubles me, Fraser, it troubles me a lot."

"But - " Fraser says and then does the swallowing thing again.

"Do you have any cream soda?" Buck asks into the silence. Bob scoffs.

"Could we have a few moments alone?" Fraser asks.

"Of course, son," Bob says, but both he and Buck are laughing as they retreat into the kitchen.

"I'm not angry," Ray says before Fraser can say anything else.

"Ray," Fraser says, a little helplessly.

"You were there with me, under the building. That's all that matters."

"But I wasn't," Fraser says, plainly frustrated. "I wasn't there with you."

"You were," Ray says. "You believe me that I can see your father, and that Buck comes over all the time and steals my food, right?"

"Yes," Fraser says, "Of course I do."

"And that doesn't make any sense, does it?"

"Well...no," Fraser admits. "It is quite peculiar. But if I was there with you, as you say, in the wreckage, why don't I remember?"

"Crisis apparition!" Buck shouts from the kitchen. "You were in a crisis, Benton, because your partner was in a crisis."

"Been known to happen, son," Bob chimes in. "Once - "

"Ok, ok, enough from the peanut gallery," Ray shouts. "Mind your own business, for once."

"You obviously need our help," Bob responds.

"Dad," Fraser says. "Please."

There's no response. Fraser sighs.

"Is he always like this?" Ray asks.

"Always," Fraser responds. "Well, since he died. Does Buck really eat your food? I didn't realize that one could achieve such solidity while astral projecting."

"He's solid all right," Ray says. "So do you believe me now? About the building? About how I'm not angry?"

"Ray," Fraser says imploringly. Ray reaches out for Fraser's hand and squeezes it, rubbing his thumb along the back. It's meant to be reassuring, but he holds on a moment too long, or perhaps the touching itself was the problem and suddenly the air is thick between them, and Fraser's blinking fast, and looking down at where their hands are touching.

"I was in trouble," Ray says, "And you were there with me. Even if you weren't _there_."

Fraser looks up at Ray, his eyes dark. "Ray," he says, his voice much less steady.

And then Fraser's leaning forward and their mouths are touching, and for a moment it feels just like Ray is back on the gurney, Fraser looming over him, making him feel confused and safe, but then Fraser's hand is at the back of Ray's neck, pulling him close, and Ray isn't anywhere but in the middle of this moment, Fraser's mouth moving against his, Fraser's exhale hot against his cheek.

He lets the pressure of Fraser's kiss push him back against the arm of the couch. Fraser isn't being hesitant, but neither is he quite as confident as he could be, and Ray wants to convince him that everything's ok, so Ray uses his tongue against Fraser's bottom lip, the corners of his mouth, and his hands on Fraser's hair. When he shifts so he's not slipping down into the cushions, his hips press against Fraser's and Fraser jerks back with a gasp. Ray rests his hands in the middle of Fraser's back and holds him close, and after a few tense moments, Fraser kisses Ray's jaw and then his cheek and lets his hips brush Ray's deliberately this time, once, and then twice, and then Fraser's saying Ray's name over and over like a moan.

There's a cough again, though it sounds real, because it's followed by a few seconds of genuine choking and then what is probably a firm thump on the back. "Sorry," Buck says hoarsely.

"Choked on horseradish," Bob says in explanation. "How's the conversation?" When Ray opens his eyes, Bob and Buck are both looking down over the couch. It takes a moment longer for Fraser to notice, and then he and Ray spring apart.

"Well," Bob says. "Time for us to be on our way." And then he gives Buck a positively bawdy leer. "Goodnight, son," he says with his hand on Buck's shoulder. Fraser looks appalled. Ray blinks, and they're both gone.

Fraser rub his hand over his face.

"So," Ray says, and he's about to lean in to kiss Fraser again when Fraser holds up a hand.

"I believe this story will help me illustrate my point." Before Ray can protest, Fraser begins. "Years ago, there was a scientist who moved to Ellesmere Island study the Salix arctica, or, Arctic willow. It was a necessarily lonely pursuit, that kind of woody plant research, and one day a storm caught him by surprise. He became stuck in a drift."

"Wait, I know how this ends. He rides a fruity caribou home, right?" Ray interrupts.

Fraser stares at him for a moment before supplying, "A Peary caribou? No, I believe that was Howling Howard. How do you know about Howard and his caribou?"

"Buck told me that one."

"Buck told you about Howling Howard?"

"He told me all sorts of stories," Ray says. Fraser looks momentarily at a loss. "Tell me what happened to the willow guy in the snow."

"As the storm raged on, he was slowly buried in the snow, first up to his knees, then his waist, then his - "

"Is this a horror story, Fraser?"

"He became buried, and in his desperation, he began talking to an old friend of his, who he hadn't seen since before he began his self imposed isolation on Ellsmere Island. To his shock, the friend appeared, and dug him out of the snow, and helped him all the way back to his cabin."

"Fraser, what are you trying to tell me?" Ray interrupted, because once he wasn't thinking about the guy and the caribou, he got the feeling this wasn't one of Fraser's usual stories.

Fraser continued along with the story as though Ray had never interrupted. "When he was safe inside his cabin, warm by the fire, he turned to thank his friend and found his friend was gone. His friend had died several days before, in a snowmobile accident."

"Fraser," Ray says, because Fraser's expression has gone woefully dejected. "You get that I'm alive, right?" Fraser just stares back at him. "You think, you think I'm dead?"

"You can understand my reluctance to be certain about anything, Ray, considering what happened earlier tonight with my father and Buck Frobisher."

"Good thing you weren't here a few minutes earlier, you would have had a lot more reluctance."

"When you were under the building," Fraser says, quietly, "I saw you."

"Yeah, I thought we already covered this," Ray says.

"No, Ray, I saw you where I was, just after I'd apprehended the tomato thief and convinced him to return the stolen goods. I turned around and you were there, asking me where I was. The only person who has ever appeared to me like that - when they ought to have been somewhere else - "

"Your father," Ray fills in. Fraser nods mournfully. "What did we talk about, you and me - the other me?"

"Tomato sauce," Fraser says expressionless. "You shared with me a list of the restaurants in the area you had yet to patronize. I told you what I believed to be the secret ingredient in Lt. Welsh's favorite pizza sauce."

"We talked about food?"

"I think you were trying to distract me. To keep me calm, because it was then I realized that the building I had last seen you go into was no longer there. I got a message from Buck Frobisher by way of Inspector Thatcher by way of police dispatch that you were buried in - " Fraser stops, apparently unable to complete the thought.

"I'm alive," Ray says. He kisses Fraser for extra proof, but Fraser doesn't kiss him back.

"What if you're still stuck under the building?" Fraser asks in a quiet, pained voice. "What if you're still under there?"

"But I'm fine. I'm fine. We both did this sort of crisis apparition thing, okay? We were both there for each other in a crisis. That's good teamwork, right there."

"Except, Ray, that - "

Ray is finding that using his mouth instead of his words to win an argument with Fraser is going to come up a lot. He places his hands on either side of Fraser's face and holds on to him like that when he kisses him, and Fraser kisses back this time, desperate and so intense it makes Ray's heart speed up so that it's pounding hard against his ribs.

"You're not dead," Fraser says, whispering against Ray's ear as though he's willing to to be true.

"I'm alive," Ray says. "And I kind of want some tomato sauce, actually."

Fraser's laugh against his neck is the best thing Ray's ever felt.


End file.
